


He's Likable, I Swear

by Bluedragonstorm



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, also a cat, i just wanted to make these dorks be dorks and also mention a cat, it just seemed important to me for some reason, maybe like...pre-relationship, there's a hint of kagehina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-01
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 13:26:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluedragonstorm/pseuds/Bluedragonstorm
Summary: Get sorta lost and find a (somewhat violent) friend.





	He's Likable, I Swear

There were better ways to spend his time than wandering around the backstreets of the section of town he wasn’t even all that familiar with. He thought that he was sort of near that one restaurant his parents liked to go to on their anniversary, but he himself had only been there twice (back when he was really young and they couldn’t find a babysitter) and to be honest his memory wasn’t all that good anyway. 

 

He remembered important stuff! Like the first time he saw the Little Giant playing—no _soaring_ —high above the players that underestimated him, securing a win for his team with nothing but his palm, his heart, and his jump. And he remembered Natsu’s favorite songs to listen to when she did her homework. And Kenma’s phone number; he memorized it super fast so he could call the Nekoma setter even if he lost his phone! Not that he would! He kinda lost it that first week but he found it under his bed. Now he doesn’t sleep with it in his hand anymore.

 

Now then, where was—ah, there! Going around the corner! Shouyou sped up his pace, but only a little bit in case he was too loud or he startled the little guy. Well, he thinks it’s a guy. He hasn’t been able to get close enough to check, but he’s pretty sure that black cat is male. It gave off that vibe anyway. If that made sense. Probably not. Didn’t really matter though.

 

What did matter was that the cat, despite still being able to move kinda fast, had something wrong with it’s left hind leg. Shouyou had noticed it when he was walking back home from the market with a surprise for Natsu. He birthday was coming up and he didn’t have a ton to spend because most of his allowance went towards volleyball-related things like his pads and he needed new laces in his shoes and also he saw that cool magazine with the player going like _fwoom-shwah!_ on the cover and he just had to get it! He had to! He might need to face that move in the future or even use it himself!

 

But he kept a little bit and got her one of those fancy hair things that she always stared at in commercials and at the store. It wasn’t one of the _really_ fancy ones because those were SO MUCH MONEY, but he got one in her favorite color and it sparkled so she’d like it. She loved anything that sparkled. But glitter got everywhere so she only had a few little things right now. One more wouldn’t hurt. It would make her happy and she’d look really cute. 

 

Maybe it’d stop her from waking him up on weekends by dumping water on his head. He really really really hated that but he could only get a certain amount of mad at her because she’s his little sister and she doesn’t want to be mean, she just wants to get her way and doing that means acting like a little brat sometimes. Shouyou gets it, he’s kinda bratty sometimes too. Less so since Natsu was born but still.

 

Anyway, he had gotten the hair thing and he was headed back home when he saw that black cat. It kind of always hung out near the store, but it never stayed long when someone came out or went in. Must be nervous around people. He hoped nothing bad had happened to it and it was just kinda shy. Shouyou could deal with shy, he was friends with Kenma after all! And Yachi! Although she was more nervous than shy. Well…sometimes she was both. 

So he’d been following this cat for about half an hour now. He called his mom, obviously, so she wouldn’t get worried. She told him not to go too far and not to get lost and he promised her that he wouldn’t, but he was kinda nearly at that point now. Or maybe a teensy little tiny bit past it. But the cat was hurt, he couldn’t just leave it!

 

But he also shouldn’t disobey his mom. Or get (even more) lost. 

 

Shouyou sighed, it wasn’t what he wanted to do, but it had to be done. Digging into his store bag, he pulled out his secret weapon before placing the bag on the ground next to him. A sealed, still fairly warm meat bun. He had been hoping to save it for when he got home, in part to throw off Natsu from discovering the gift (she HATED meat buns, which was dumb because they were SOOOOOO good) and also because he just really wanted it and he had _just_ enough to get one. Granted, now he wouldn’t be able to afford one after practice tomorrow, but his senpais would probably get him one anyway. 

 

They were really nice! And cool! He liked them all a lot! He was also SUPER-DUPER excited to play with them again but he kinda always felt that way about volleyball and his awesome team.

 

The crinkly noise of the bun’s wrap made the cat, who had apparently been hiding behind somebody’s recycling bin in the street, slink around cautiously. When the meat bun was split open, two beautiful halves of delicious meaty goodness in each of Shouyou’s hands, the cat darted forward as fast as it could on it’s three good legs and sat about a foot away from him. 

 

He smiled at the cat and tried to talk as softly and warmly as he could, “Hello. My name’s Shouyou. I got some yummy food here that I can give you. Just don’t run away or attack me and you can have a little bit. Okay?”

 

The cat moved its eyes from the food to Shouyou’s face and wow, those were some really blue eyes. Pretty neat. It reminded him of someone, actually. Hmmm. The cat’s nose twitched as it sniffed around and it leaned towards the young boy.

 

Shouyou bent down, slowly, and presented the food for further inspection. After a few more sniffs, the feline came closer and snagged one half for himself, pulling away to nibble at it but not dragging it completely out of sight. A win for Shouyou, seeing as he really didn’t want to wander around much longer. He chose to stuff the other half of the food into his own mouth as a reward for getting close to the cat.

 

The high schooler was content to sit there for a while and let the little guy finish his meal. He still spoke to it though, “Meat buns are yummy, right? They’re my favorite right next to tamago kake gohan! You’d probably like that too if you tried it. It’s the only thing I know how to make at home. Mom’s a super good cook, though, so it’s fine.”

 

Brown eyes drifted from the intense munching of the cat to fall on its leg.

“I wonder how you got that? It looks kinda painful. I don’t know anything about animal doctors, but mom might! She’s smart. So is Yachi. Maybe she knows something too. Hey, would you like to come home with me?”

 

Finished with it’s meal, or perhaps it was being polite to Shouyou and wanted to show it was listening, the cat stared directly into his eyes. It looked kinda…unimpressed? Angry? Shouyou didn’t know, but it wasn’t a very nice look. But he figured it didn’t really matter because it was just a cat and Shouyou was a human and he was gonna bring him home anyway. 

 

Mom wouldn’t let him keep a stray (and it must have been a stray because there wasn’t any collar on it) but she’d make sure it wasn’t hurt too bad and let Shouyou feed it for a few days. At least that’s what she said on the phone. Although it’s possible that she figured he wouldn’t actually get the cat in the first place.

 

So Shouyou picked up the cat. Its immediate reaction was to sink its front claws into his chest and try to bite at his arm, which nearly caused the boy to drop it. That HURT! 

 

“Dumb kitty. Mean kitty. I’m trying to help you, you stupid cat,” he said, attempting to soothe the flailing furball. It either hated being picked up or took great offense to the name-calling, because its determination to cover Shouyou in long red scratches seemed to double after he spoke.

 

“Stop, stop, STOP ALRIGHT FINE I’LL PUT YOU BACK DOWN!”

 

The cat froze.

 

Shouyou froze.

 

They looked at each other for a long moment.

 

“Do you…do you not want to be put down?”

 

The cat blinked.

 

Shouyou sighed, “Then don’t attack me like that, geez.”He adjusted his grip on the cat, watching it closely for signs it was gonna freak out again, and snagged up his shop bag. The cat seemed alright for now but its eyes still looked kinda mean—

 

“KAGEYAMA!”

 

Startled by the sudden yell, the cat’s claws dug into his chest again. Ow.

 

“Ahh, sorry, sorry. Please stop, I won’t yell again. It’s just that you remind me of my friend, Kageyama.” 

 

It took some time, but the cat was appeased by Shouyou’s quieter tone and finally released him. Changing in front of the others was probably gonna be weird now.

 

Shouyou turned around and began walking in the direction he came from. Well, he thinks he came from this direction. He’s like…68% sure. And that’s a passing grade! So he’ll probably be fine.

 

He started talking to the cat again, since he was bored and it seemed like the cat didn’t mind. Or at least it didn’t mind enough to hurt him again or try and run away.

 

“Kageyama Tobio is his full name. He’s a setter and a really really really good one, too. He sets like _shuu!_ and his serves are like _fwah-bam!_ like the Grand King kind of but different too cuz those go _fwah-boom!_ but Kageyama’s—don’t tell him I said this, by the way—Kageyama’s are cooler cuz he gets this really scary look on his face. Not like ‘i’m gonna hit you, dumbass Hinata’ scary but like ‘we’re gonna win _my way_ ’ scary,” he continues, mimicking the taller boy’s voice. He thinks it’s a good impression, but he can’t do the hair because his hands are full.

 

Glancing down, the cat appears to be pretty focused on him. Maybe he likes being told stories? Shouyou decides to keep going, “And he’s really tall. You probably think all humans are tall since you’re a cat, but he’s way bigger than me. Which is kinda unfair. He can’t jump like I can though. But it’s okay, he’s cool the way he is. I mean he’s a bully and a jerk and he’s soooo stupid, but I like him. He’s a good friend.”

 

The cat turns away at that and it’s ears kinda flatten a little. Maybe he was sad? Was he sad because Shouyou said Kageyama was a good friend and he didn’t have any friends? Do cats even want friends? Oh, he should name it! And call him his friend!

 

“Hey, kitty. Um. I’m gonna call you Tobio from now on, okay? Because you look like Kageyama. But I can’t call you Kageyama or I’ll get confused. Unless I call him Yama-yama from now on but I think he hates that. He always grabs my head when I do that and squeezes it with his huge hands. His hands don’t have to be that big! I mean I guess it’s useful for volleyball but still, who needs hands so big they can hold my head?”

 

Tobio doesn’t answer him, but he does press his nose against Shoyou’s neck. Shouyou doesn’t know if that means anything, but he keeps talking anyway, all the way home.

 

********

A gasp is heard in the locker room and suddenly Hinata is backed up against the wall with Nishinoya and Tanaka staring him down while looking betrayed.

 

“Shou-chan how could you,” the libero begins, “we’re your senpai and we care about you so much. Why didn’t you tell us you had a girlfriend!?”

 

Shouyou thinks he might have heard a snort from someone, but it was drowned out by his rapid stuttering as he turned bright red, “G-G-G-girlfriend?!”

 

“YEAH! Shoulda TOLD US! I didn’t even know you liked a girl! WHO is she? HOW COME YOU GOT A GIRL BEFORE ME?”

 

Another snort, this one becoming full-blown chuckling, came from the blond boy behind the two yelling second-years. Yamaguchi nudged him in the side to try and get him to stop, but seemed to be having trouble holding back his own laughter. Traitor.

 

Shouyou frowned in their direction, well mostly just as Jerkshima, and tried ignore the burning in his cheeks. He turned pleading eyes to his favorite senpais. Well okay, to be fair, all of them were his favorite ‘cuz Asahi was their ace and Daichi was their captain and no one gave better recommendations for tv shows than Kinoshita and—he just really liked them all but Tanaka and Nishinoya just _got_ him, yaknow?

 

So he really wanted to make them understand, “I don’t have a girlfriend! And I’m sure that girls would love Tanaka-san oh and Noya-san too, if they knew you and saw you in our matches! You’re both super cool!”

 

The duo’s attitude immediately changed as they glowed with pride at Shouyou’s words. Nishinoya threw an arm around the decoy and pulled him into a strong side hug, “Thanks, Shou-chan! My Rolling Thunder’s pretty impressive, isn’t it? And Ryuu’s spikes are awesome!”

 

“YEAH THEY ARE!” Wait a minute, where did Tanaka’s shirt go, he just had it on?

 

While Daichi focused on getting Tanaka to quiet down and put his clothes back on, Suga turned a gentle but slightly concerned smile at Shouyou, “Hinata-kun, I think the reason they were asking about you having a girlfriend was because of those marks.”

 

“Marks?” 

 

Suga’s smile turned into a half-smirk, not mean like Tsukishima’s but kinda teasing, “Your chest, Hinata. And your arms.”

 

“Oh, right, that’s from Tobio.”

 

Silence. 

 

“ **WHAT!?** ” “No WAY!” “WITH KAGEYAMA?” “Figured the king would be aggressive.” “You’re on a first name basis now?” “Wow.” “Huh.”

 

Kageyama, who had been clipping his nails in relative peace (he always kinda zones out when he does that) turned pale, before his face and neck began heating up dangerously fast. “I-I-No-I-Hina-nat-no, what?”

 

Now it was Shouyou’s turn—again—to flush and he hurried to explain, shaking his head furiously and flapping his arms, “NO, NOT LIKE THAT! NOT KAGEYAMA TOBIO, JUST TOBIO! A CAT I FOUND, A CAT! A CAT!”

 

Kageyama was turning purple and Shouyou wanted to bury himself under all the volleyballs in the world to hide from the strength of the other boy’s glare, “You named…a cat…after me.”

 

Well that sounded bad. For one, Kageyama was doing that scary quiet voice he did when he threatened Shouyou like PROPERLY threatened him not just tried to hit him and call him names. And two, it just sounded weird to actually say that out loud. Tobio was probably the worst name he could have chosen, now that he thinks about it. 

 

The cat was cute, he could have called it Natsu. It was weird, he could have called it Tendou. It was way stronger than it looked, he could have called it Little Giant. Actually that last one was really good, why didn’t he just name it Little Giant?!

 

“Uh…I…well. So the cat has black hair, um fur, like you and it has really nice blue eyes like you and it acted really mean at first but he actually likes me now and he’s really super cute and he loves meat buns like we do and he plays volleyball with me, I mean he can’t play for real, but he can push it to me with his good paws and his back paw is healing and mom says that if I do good taking care of him, I can keep him forever and I really want that!”

 

Wow. Shouyou just said a lot. Like a whole lot. More than he planned on saying. Suga was the first to respond to his babbling freak out and quickly got everyone back on track and soon they were all practicing and forcibly ignoring what just happened.

 

Well, I mean they all tried to ignore it. Shouyou kinda…couldn’t. His spikes were as great as they always were but his receives were even worse than normal and twice he almost fell down. Not even tripped while trying to jump or anything, he legs just kinda got weird while he was standing and waiting for the next move. He never actually fell, which was good, but he kinda…just went all _bluweh_.

 

And Kageyama wasn’t much better. Well, he was, because he never messed up a serve or a set but he refused to look at Shouyou the whole time and when he wasn’t actively influencing the ball he stared down at his feet with this really weird look Shouyou never saw before. It was intense but not scary but also kind of scary anyway? He wasn’t sure but it was definitely weird.

 

Eventually practice ended and everyone started heading home. It all was kind of hazy for Shouyou. He talked with everyone and he played sort of not too terribly, and suddenly he was walking home. With his bike beside him. And on the other side of that bike was Kageyama. Who hadn’t spoken since before practice. He hadn’t even yelled at Shouyou. Not once. Was it really that bad to name a cat after him?

 

“…You,” the taller boy began and oh god oh no, this was it, this was when Shouyou died. He didn’t get to meet the Little Giant in person. He didn’t get to give Natsu her present yet. His maybe-pet cat wouldn’t have an owner. Or well, mom would probably keep him anyway but still oh no, did he tell her he loved her today?

 

“…like blue eyes?”

 

What.

Wait, what? Shouyou froze on the spot and the setter beside him stopped too.

 

“Uhh, Kageyama?”

 

Kageyama was kind of red again, but not crazy red like before, “Earlier. You _said—_ you said that the cat had nice blue eyes and you named it after me…”

 

Shouyou looked at his handlebars, tightened his grip around them, then loosened them again. He focused on his hands, repeating that motion a couple more times in silence before he looked up and locked eyes with Kageyama.

 

“Yeah. I like blue eyes. They’re nice. Pretty.”

 

“Oh.”

 

“Um…To-Tobio’s eyes aren’t as dark as yours, but they’re just as nice.”

 

“My eyes are nice?”

 

“Uh…yeah.”

 

“Okay. You too.”

 

“Me too, what?”

 

“You. Those,” he said, gesturing vaguely to Shouyou’s face.

 

“Those? My eyes?”

 

A nod.

 

“You like my eyes? Kageyama likes my eyes? My eyes? You? Like them?”

 

“YES! Shut UP, DUMBASS, stop repeating yourself!”

 

“Okay…wanna come over and see Tobio? He’s really cute!”

 

“…yeah, fine. Whatever. We’re gonna practice when we get there, though.”

 

“Of course we are! You gotta toss to me or you can’t pet him!” 

**Author's Note:**

> Once he got there, Kageyama was really nervous that Tobio would hate him. So he just stared at him from like five feet away and Tobio stared right back. This went on for two full minutes. Shouyou had to pick up the cat and bring it over to him, but in the end, Tobio really liked the chin scritches he got from his namesake and Kageyama finally found a small cute animal that wasn't completely terrified of him.


End file.
